ferdinand1932

It's too easy to comment on the suspension of disbelief required to follow this: the A&R people in rural Yorkshire; the ability to form something sonically coherent quickly and most of the all the plot device that Dickens might have balked at when long lost family members discover each other over the kitchen table.

That last one is so corny as too be used on a quota basis by soap operas in Thailand and Mexico, yet it gets a run here because, well, it fits a wider plotting structure, which is where the weakness lies in this series.

Wainwright is a deft hand with TV formats and characterization even adding fine tones into the portrayals and the situations that a meat and potatoes to the TV machine.

Here she stumbles with a dichotomy between female and male roles that is stereotypical and blunt to say the least, even crude where the plotting fits a necessary arc according to gender lines that is predictable and tedious.

But here is a reductive simplicity to this drama. It is poor writing from someone with better work in their resume.

Having said that, the women in the band are all TV names and work well together with their individual story lines that provide the bulk of the series, mingling the personal and mid-life regrets, hot flushes and other bodily inconveniences with another chance at a youthful illusion of personal fulfillment. 'Riot Women' shows that TV is fantasy time for middle-aged adults too.

Another series is due and perhaps the crinkles in the XY characters versus XX character will be better developed. It is certainly within Wainwright's capacity.

Why this preposterous drivel was even created is a question that should haunt those responsible. The updating of a classic that was fixed in space and time, with a tonality that doesn't fit a contemporary revision makes no sense, and that it is conducted in English, whilst all the signs and computers are in French, exposes the incoherence of the project.

The persistent question is why anyone thought this was worth doing in this way: presumably to make it more appealing to a younger audience; well, if that is the case, it shows how shallow and silly the industry is. Well, that was known for some time but as if to underline their own abject lack of talent resurrecting a classic and imposing anachronisms is as near as to mindless vandalism as it is possible to do to a classic.

Then there's the Franglais, that awkward delivery of English in a London accent in the restrained and clipped dialogue of Simenon. This follows a well rutted track of English productions butchering France and French gong back to the Hundred Years War. It is the school drama acting that really commends this production of the hallowed prestige of truly dismal. That the actors are not much past 30 makes it more galling because they are playing dress ups in the role of Maigret's staff and of the eponymous lead who were all mature, not these recent grads of some drama school.

There are several other better productions, the Bruno Cremer is very good, atmosphere being its signature, and of course, the books themselves which in the millions still hold an attraction. And in French.

It is to be hoped that that is production is not used as leverage by the French in future negotiations and that its scripts, and all materials are buried forever.

Having chosen a 30,000 word Joseph Conrad story and turned it into a dramatic screenplay, selected a named cast of English and American actors, chosen an excellent DP and shot the story in country locations and towns that added to the spectacle, it's fair to say that Ridley's Scott's debut is a resounding success. Why it's not better known and celebrated is a mystery.

The answer could be the story. Conrad's tale is a recreation of a period a century before he wrote ''The Duel'' and it tries to imbue it with the sense of warrior pride, arrogance even, among the French officers of Napoleon's armies. Scott's film is entirely faithful to that aim, and the casting of Carradine and Keitel serves it well.

Conrad's story is ironic insofar as it is about two men who go from being lieutenants to generals, from the pinnacle of Napoleon's success to the abyss of defeat, who maintain a conflict over all that time yet, have a mutual duty as officers to each other. Their bond is through pride. In Conrad's text the two officers are cast as opposites, stereotypes even: one is a fiery southerner; the other is a phlegmatic northerner. This opposition drive the long feud on.

For an audience the story may seem slightly ridiculous and pointless. It's probable that the last time western armies practiced such a code of honor was in the early years of World War 1 when captured officers were treated as honored guests of their captors. As such this ethical code is so old as to be unknowable.

This expression of duty between peers is articulated in the story as one rises and thither falls but is missing from the end of the film which only implies it. That is the only weakness in the film version of the story.

Scott's direction is complete: the framing and scene development are what is expected for this material, simple in the best sense of that in directing terms. It should be said that the production design is ravishing, from interiors to the bleak winter in Russia as the camera work and lighting. This film seduces the eye with its photography.